I think the idea of satisfaction just refuses to take root in my brain. No matter what I throw at my current circumstances, I am never content. I imagine chopping all of my hair off in response to this insidious summer heat. I imagine that without the hassle of long, frizzy hair, I can somehow be the energetic, free spirit I've always planned on being. I wonder if dying my hair blue will do the trick. I wondered if moving to Temple, or becoming a nurse, or acquiring another dog, or becoming proficient in Mandarin Chinese would satisfy me. Becoming a full-time writer. Wandering the country with my dogs like a vagrant with no material possessions. Walking the entire Appalachian Trail. Backpacking through Ireland for a month. Moving to Massachusetts. Moving to New York. Moving to California. Moving to Washington. All of these are relatively recent ideas of mine that I became convinced would bring me peace and fulfillment. If I could only do THAT. If I could only look THIS WAY. If I could only accomplish THAT. Always something else. I've shaved part of my head, pierced my face, tried to become a hippie mountain woman who refers to her menses as a "moon cycle". I have tried every thing, let me tell you. And I always end up in this same place. Alone, typing on my computer, telling you guys how it didn't work out quite the way I imagined. I think it might be time to up that Prozac.
I wish I knew if this was just clinical depression that required me to pump myself full of medication just to achieve the normal balance that comes so easily to everyone else, or if this was an honest soul-scream, requiring me to take action. I wish I fucking knew. What I do know is that my entire life I've believed it was something deep down letting me know that I was on the wrong path, and if I could just find the right path, this gnawing feeling would evaporate like dew in the morning, leaving me green, fresh, and sweet smelling as grass. I would rather have some kind of destiny than be the person who just happened to be born with an inability to produce adequate serotonin.
Always, always, always, I hear something calling me, telling me there is something more. I've never not felt like I am missing out on something that I should be seeing. How fucking ridiculous. I keep feeling like if all life amounts to is a bunch of hairless apes crawling around the Earth fucking things about, then I'm not sure how excited I am about all of it. I am excited by stories. And I am endless depressed by the fact that the vivid, purposeful world that exists in my books is not reality at all. Maybe other humans feel this call, too. Maybe that's why authors are drawn to write books, and artists to make art. Because they sense some element of something more. They sense something there, and they try to re-create it, to express to world and to other like-minded individuals that they see it, too...that they feel it. That you aren't the only one.
All I'm sure of at the moment is that I'm extremely dubious about a life that requires so much escapism just to function normally within it. Facebook, Instagram, gossip sites, television, apps and video games...all forms of running on a treadmill. Feeling like you're doing something to scratch that itch in your brain, without actually accomplishing anything. All of it seems stupid and meaningless, although I participate like everybody else. Spending 98% of my life working just so that I can spend the remaining 2% of my life complaining about working or drugging myself to oblivion with PerezHilton.com or endlessly scrolling down on Facebook. It doesn't seem like much of a life. I'm just not sure if there is another way to do it.
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Growing Pains
Being twenty-four is a big pain in the butt. Being twenty ANYTHING is a big pain in the butt. There's so much personal growth involved. It seems like every other day some bone that makes up my emotional anatomy is broken and re-set. Which is cool. It's alright. It's certainly infinitely preferable to emotional stasis.
I thought I loved someone. Maybe I really do. But he doesn't love me...at least, not anymore. Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme. I wish I could tell you the whole long, involved story, but after typing half of it out, I decided that it belongs with him, and with me. I'll treasure our story in the same way you treasure that ugly sweater that your Aunt Harriet gave to you the Christmas before she died. Damn, it sure is ugly to look at, but it's all you have left of a person and a relationship that you owe so much. So you keep it somewhere in the back of your closet to examine and run your fingers over the fabric fondly on a rainy day.
Knowing him for so many years taught me how to like and respect someone so much that you make the choice to love them. Love is a choice, in my opinion. The last few weeks have taught me how to let someone go with love, after slogging through all of the bitterness with painful, leaden feet. I finally understand that he isn't the person I need, and I am not the person he needs. He walked away from me first, I know, though it happened so slowly I don't think either of us realized it until I was desperately pulling at his shirt to keep him with me.
He walked away from me first. I loved him in a way that took years to develop, that never came easily to me. He loved me instantaneously, hot as fire that consumed him and in the end was burned to nothing. I'll never forget the week that I knew he didn't love me anymore. I'd gone to stay with him at his apartment, and all week long, with increasing purpose and urgency, he pointed out my character flaws. I felt his hatred and disdain, a by-product of the guilt he felt for luring me so far into this relationship only to change his mind.
"You see? She's so volatile. Of course you can't love her. OF COURSE. See how she doesn't study until the last minute? So disorganized. You definitely can't love someone like that. I don't blame you one bit. This never could have gone anywhere."
I watched it happen, sometimes silently, sometimes hysterically, rushing around straightening my hair and applying makeup to convince him to love and want me again. What goes around, comes around I suppose. The first half of our relationship he spent desperately trying to get my attention. He'd throw temper tantrums when I wouldn't text him back, or dance with him at a party. Now the roles are reversed. But does that count as a healthy relationship? When you never love each other at the same time? Is that what love really looks like? I doubt it.
I'm still horrifically sad about it, of course. It's hard saying good-bye not only to my favorite person, but to the idea that I really ever loved him at all. To the idea that this could have ever gone anywhere. What I thought was a mature and abiding love turned out to be so cheap and so small, and that hurts. It hurts to be wrong. It hurts to be alone again after I thought those days were over. It hurts, in ways that surprise me every day, to say good-bye to all of the red-headed children we had talked about having. It hurts to say good-bye to a future that I thought for sure was mine. I wish I could've held it in my hand. I wish I could've kept it. I still can't believe something can pass away so quietly, so quickly, after fighting so long for it to exist at all. I wish I wasn't the only one left to wave a sad good-bye to this thing that could've been. I wish he could've waved good-bye with me, holding hands in a silent salute, paying homage to what almost was. But he's already gone, walking down another path that was never meant for me.
I'll miss that smug face you make when you think you know everything. I'll miss how much my body liked being close to your body. I'll miss the way your skin smells, no matter how long it's been since you've taken a shower. I'll miss your liquid brown eyes, even though I can't remember the way they looked at me back when you loved me. I'll miss your dry lips. I'll miss your small hands with big veins. I'll miss that moment where you and I were sitting on my couch in the dark, with that dog we rescued curled up in my arms. That was when I knew I loved you, although I never told you how much I treasured that moment. I wish you hadn't changed so much. I wish I hadn't changed so much.
I'll find my way to forgiving you, brother, for walking away, and for misplacing your anger and guilt. We are on two different journeys. I hope we both end up somewhere good. I'll find my way to forgiving myself, if I'm being honest, for somehow not being enough to keep you.
I love you, my friend, my almost-lover, the one I almost chose. I'll cry over what we lost enough for the both of us, and I'll make that sad, silent salute alone.
I thought I loved someone. Maybe I really do. But he doesn't love me...at least, not anymore. Tale as old as time, song as old as rhyme. I wish I could tell you the whole long, involved story, but after typing half of it out, I decided that it belongs with him, and with me. I'll treasure our story in the same way you treasure that ugly sweater that your Aunt Harriet gave to you the Christmas before she died. Damn, it sure is ugly to look at, but it's all you have left of a person and a relationship that you owe so much. So you keep it somewhere in the back of your closet to examine and run your fingers over the fabric fondly on a rainy day.
Knowing him for so many years taught me how to like and respect someone so much that you make the choice to love them. Love is a choice, in my opinion. The last few weeks have taught me how to let someone go with love, after slogging through all of the bitterness with painful, leaden feet. I finally understand that he isn't the person I need, and I am not the person he needs. He walked away from me first, I know, though it happened so slowly I don't think either of us realized it until I was desperately pulling at his shirt to keep him with me.
He walked away from me first. I loved him in a way that took years to develop, that never came easily to me. He loved me instantaneously, hot as fire that consumed him and in the end was burned to nothing. I'll never forget the week that I knew he didn't love me anymore. I'd gone to stay with him at his apartment, and all week long, with increasing purpose and urgency, he pointed out my character flaws. I felt his hatred and disdain, a by-product of the guilt he felt for luring me so far into this relationship only to change his mind.
"You see? She's so volatile. Of course you can't love her. OF COURSE. See how she doesn't study until the last minute? So disorganized. You definitely can't love someone like that. I don't blame you one bit. This never could have gone anywhere."
I watched it happen, sometimes silently, sometimes hysterically, rushing around straightening my hair and applying makeup to convince him to love and want me again. What goes around, comes around I suppose. The first half of our relationship he spent desperately trying to get my attention. He'd throw temper tantrums when I wouldn't text him back, or dance with him at a party. Now the roles are reversed. But does that count as a healthy relationship? When you never love each other at the same time? Is that what love really looks like? I doubt it.
I'm still horrifically sad about it, of course. It's hard saying good-bye not only to my favorite person, but to the idea that I really ever loved him at all. To the idea that this could have ever gone anywhere. What I thought was a mature and abiding love turned out to be so cheap and so small, and that hurts. It hurts to be wrong. It hurts to be alone again after I thought those days were over. It hurts, in ways that surprise me every day, to say good-bye to all of the red-headed children we had talked about having. It hurts to say good-bye to a future that I thought for sure was mine. I wish I could've held it in my hand. I wish I could've kept it. I still can't believe something can pass away so quietly, so quickly, after fighting so long for it to exist at all. I wish I wasn't the only one left to wave a sad good-bye to this thing that could've been. I wish he could've waved good-bye with me, holding hands in a silent salute, paying homage to what almost was. But he's already gone, walking down another path that was never meant for me.
I'll miss that smug face you make when you think you know everything. I'll miss how much my body liked being close to your body. I'll miss the way your skin smells, no matter how long it's been since you've taken a shower. I'll miss your liquid brown eyes, even though I can't remember the way they looked at me back when you loved me. I'll miss your dry lips. I'll miss your small hands with big veins. I'll miss that moment where you and I were sitting on my couch in the dark, with that dog we rescued curled up in my arms. That was when I knew I loved you, although I never told you how much I treasured that moment. I wish you hadn't changed so much. I wish I hadn't changed so much.
I'll find my way to forgiving you, brother, for walking away, and for misplacing your anger and guilt. We are on two different journeys. I hope we both end up somewhere good. I'll find my way to forgiving myself, if I'm being honest, for somehow not being enough to keep you.
I love you, my friend, my almost-lover, the one I almost chose. I'll cry over what we lost enough for the both of us, and I'll make that sad, silent salute alone.
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